The Metamorph
by SimplySupreme
Summary: See, I wasn't normal. I was what the wizarding world would call a metamorphmagus, the definition of which being a witch able to change their appearance at will without the aid of a wand or potions. My sister, Nymphadora, had been one too, as was Teddy, her son. That was what was nice about Forks. Here, I wasn't Bella Tonks. I was Bella Swan. Forks was a fresh start. One I needed.
1. Chapter 1: A New Start

The Metamorph: Chapter One  
A New Start

* * *

'Welcome to Forks'

Well how's that to warm the cockles of your heart?

I sighed and sped up a little. I was alone in the car –a cheerful blue Camry—and was frankly bored with the whole idea. I mean, sure my muggleborn father had taught me to drive (on the other side of the road, mind you) but I'd never had to be in a car for more than thirty minutes at a time before, regardless of which side of the road I was driving on. I was a witch, damn it. I was meant to Apparate.

But I needed a car, and I'd had to go to Port Angeles to get one. It was just as well. If I were going to be living here, in muggle Forks, for the foreseeable future, I'd need to get used to it.

My name is Zosime Isabella Tonks.

My mom has a weird thing for horrifying first names.

So, to anyone who's known me since I was old enough to talk, my name is Bella. I have been known to retaliate with disproportionate (or so they tell me, as I don't regret a bit of it) violence to those who call me Zosime. Only my mother calls me Zosime. My father felt a little bad for letting my mother give me such a name, I think, so he called me Bella too, though my sister used to call me Sim, just as I called her Dora.

Of course, they don't call me anything, anymore. They're all dead.

You see, my family and I aren't what you might describe as 'normal'. We are, in fact, magical. Witches and wizards. Wands and broomsticks. The lot of it. When the War started with the reemergence of Voldemort at the end of my fourth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, my family was in the thick of it. Death Eaters –pureblood supremacists and their ilk—_really_ hated my family. My mother, Andromeda Black, had left her pureblood family in order to marry my muggleborn father, Ted Tonks, so they saw my sister Nymphadora and I as some sort of walking, talking, shape-shifting physical manifestations of everything that they hated in magical society.

My mother once told me that she named me Zosime because it meant "survivor". She said that I'd almost died at birth, but once I'd managed to pull through, she knew that I'd always find a way to survive. Sometimes, I wonder if she was a seer, because I am the only member of my entire family left alive after the destruction of the war, aside from Teddy. My father went first –killed by Snatchers. My sister, Nymphadora, and my brother-in-law, Remus, were next. They died in the Final Battle of Hogwarts. Killed by Bellatrix Lestrange and Antonin Dolohov. I still bore the scars from my duels to avenge their deaths. Finally came my mother. She'd been killed in the crossfire of a small skirmish in Diagon Alley between some of Voldemort's old sycophants and the Aurors, not a month later, in what was being referred to as 'post-war cleanup'. The Aurors were trying to flush out Dark Wizards and their supporters.

This left Teddy and I alone.

That was the reason I was here in Forks, I suppose. I'd conjured up a map of America and picked a small town at random to move to. I just… couldn't bear to be in England any more. I couldn't heal there. It suffocated me.

Thankfully, my best friend, Neville Longbottom, had understood. He'd helped me search on the Internet for a house, and had even gotten the floo connection up and working for me, so that we could still see each other often. Neville had been the sole reason that I survived my seventh year at Hogwarts, I knew. It's safe to say that Snape and the Carrows did _not_ like me much, but he and I had kept the spirit of the DA alive in resistance while Harry, Ron, and Hermione were away, even when we'd had to hide out in the Room of Requirement like the magical version of Robin Hood. So to me, all of the time I'd spent under the _cruciatus_ was worth it.

That's the thing about Neville and I. We've got a somewhat self-sacrificing noble streak about two kilometers wide.

We'd been best friends since first year. I –being almost unbelievably clumsy—had tripped over Trevor, Neville's toad (which he'd lost again) and slammed into the poor boy. It was our first morning at Hogwarts, and we'd ended up a tangle of limbs in the middle of the Common Room. He'd taken it rather gracefully, frankly. But from that point on, the pair of us had been as inseparable as the Golden Trio, who were our closest friends aside from ourselves.

Hermione had even given me impromptu lessons on 'How to Be a Muggle' when I'd informed her I'd be moving here. The girl was an absolute darling, and the most selfless person I'd ever met. She'd let me cry all over her whenever I needed it for the past two months –the aftermath of the War. She'd helped me to take care of Teddy for the first few days after my mother's death, when neither Harry nor I had the faintest idea about how to care for our young godson. I'd worn my hair in an explosion of honey-brown curls for weeks, in her honor, and what with the facial structure I'd been sporting as an imitation of Neville's, the pair of my best friends had been complaining that I looked like their illegitimate lovechild.

See, that was the thing about me. I was what the wizarding world would call a metamorphmagus, the definition of which being a witch or wizard able to change their appearance at will without the aid of a wand or potions. My sister, Nymphadora, had been one too, as was Teddy, her son. The difference between them and me, however, was the degree to which our talents manifested themselves.

There were three grades of metamorphmagi. Grade three metamorphmagi were the most common among us. A grade three metamorphmagus could change only small things about themselves, such as the color of their eyes and hair, or the length of their fingernails and the tint of their skin. Grade two metamorphmagi were less common. Both Nymphadora and Teddy were grade two, meaning that they could change most aspects of their outer appearance at will, including body shape, which was dead useful. Grade one metamorphmagi, like me, were even more unusual to come across amongst metamorphmagi, which were incredibly rare in the first place. I could change _everything_ about me, physically, inside and out, within reason. For instance, I couldn't condense my mass down enough to become a child, and I couldn't grow, say, an extra arm. Not that I'd really want to, even if I could. However, once I'd reached full maturity, I couldn't really age, because I could just make myself as young as I wanted to, important bits like internal organs included, unlike the other two grades of metamorphmagus, who aged normally on the inside no matter what they looked like on the outside. I had a base form, of course, but she wouldn't change at all, now that I've reached my magical majority at the age of seventeen.

It was a little weird, let me tell you. Being what we were, both my sister and I were very clumsy girls. (Wouldn't you be, if your center of gravity could be so easily shifted, as ours was?) We were also viewed as something like circus freaks. Harry and I bonded over that early on, actually. We were both stared at quite a bit, though Harry more so than I. I suppose that it didn't help either Nymphadora or I that we were both obnoxiously loud, bubbly personalities. I had little doubt that Teddy would be just the same.

That was what was nice about Forks, I mused as the green of the trees outside blurred by. Here, I wasn't Bella Tonks, the metamorph freak. I wasn't Bella Tonks, the DA ringleader who spent her time fighting for the safety of her fellow Hogwarts students. I wasn't Bella Tonks, who spent nights in the Gryffindor Common Room changing her hair and her face to keep the homesick first years from crying. I wasn't Bella Tonks, killer of Death Eaters Antonin Dolohov and Bellatrix Lestrange. I wasn't Bella Tonks, the orphan of war, saddled with caring for her metamorph godson.

Here, I was Bella Swan. Normal human. Junior in High School. Caregiver for her young nephew, Teddy Swan.

And that was it.

Here in Forks, I had a blank slate. A new start. An escape from the pitying looks and exclamations of gratitude. I wasn't a war hero. I wasn't the girl who'd watched her sister die.

The form I'd chosen to wear as Bella Swan was very close to my base form. I'd figured that since I couldn't change my appearance around the muggles, I might as well be _me_. During my Hogwarts years, I'd tended to model myself after my friends. 'Twinning' myself, as they'd called it. My favorite, of course, was to adopt the rounded features and dark hair of my best friend Neville and spend my time as his female better half, but I'd spent quite a bit of time as the doppelganger of Hermione as well. I'd gone weeks as the 'girl-who-lived' during fifth year, when no one had believed Harry when he'd said that Voldemort had returned. I'd even made myself into a Ginny-esque Weasley for a while and run around with Fred and George as 'twin number three', pulling pranks. I'd spent very little time in the form that I was originally born with. It was fitting that I do so now.

All in all, the 'real me' was pretty plain. I looked a great deal like my mother and aunt Bellatrix, actually. I possessed the same high cheekbones and aristocratic, period beauty. I had the same heavily-lidded eyes and thick lashes and arched eyebrows and pale, milky skin. My hair was a lighter shade of brown, though, streaked with reds and golds as opposed to black. It was straight instead of wildly curly, and my eyes were more the honey-brown that Hermione's were instead of a darker brown. Like milk chocolate and caramel. These were the traits that I received from my father. I was glad of them, not that I was ashamed of my Black heritage, but because I had shoved Molly Weasly out of the way when she was about to lose the duel to Bellatrix, and killed my own aunt. I didn't want to think about that every time I looked in the mirror, no matter how much I hated the woman.

I pulled up into the driveway of my house. It was slightly outside of the town proper, and backed up into the Olympic National Forest. It was nice, for privacy. I would even be able to fly on my broomstick –a Nimbus 2001—with the proper disillusionment charms or the cover of night. It wasn't a very big house, but it wasn't small either. There were enough bedrooms to have a guest bedroom, after I had set aside spaces for both Teddy and I. I would have magically expanded the space, but I didn't want to be forced to Obliviate any muggles that might drop by. It wasn't really necessary anyways. The house was very quaint. It was two stories tall, and painted white with blue trimmings. The epitome of a classic colonial home, really. It was a bright space, as I'd discovered this morning when I'd flooed over from England. (If I'd Apparated, I'd have been suffering from some very serious magical exhaustion, not to mention the fact that I would have had to make several stops on the way, like a skipping stone. International floo, though annoying due to the fact that there was a mandatory stop at the International Floo Station at both the English and American Ministries, was far easier.) I'd spent the entire day decorating the house with magic, painting the walls and transfiguring some of the furniture that I'd had shipped over, before Apparating to a car dealership in Port Angeles.

Leading me to where I was now.

I unlocked the front door and stepped inside the house, a tingle racing over my body as I was recognized by the wards, before flicking on the lights. (Muggle electricity. I must admit that I loved it.) I'd been forced to lay only the simplest of magical protection over the house in order to make sure that all of the muggle bits worked properly, but I wasn't overly concerned. While not as powerful as Harry or as smart as Hermione, I was still a force to be reckoned with, and any witch or wizard who dared to enter my home without my permission would _seriously _regret that decision. Besides, magical America was nothing like magical England. It was a far smaller community, for one thing, and it was exceedingly rare to find a witch or wizard west of the Mississippi. Most were settled on the East Coast, like their school, which was located in Salem, Massachusetts. It was highly unlikely that I'd come across anything from the magical world in Forks, Washington.

"_Tempus_." It was five minutes until six in the evening, according to my wand. It didn't feel like it to me, but that was probably because it was about one o'clock in the morning in England. The muggle car dealer had called this sensation 'jet lag'.

With a light sigh, I dropped my new car keys onto the island in the kitchen and moved into the living room, flopping onto the couch in front of the fireplace to wait. At six o'clock on the dot, the cold, empty square burst into green flames, and a tall, dark-haired man in black robes stepped out.

"You look a little tired, Bella," he laughed, seeing my sprawled-out position on the couch.

I scowled at him. "Stuff it, Neville," I growled at him good-naturedly before snatching Teddy, who'd been balanced on his hip, into my arms. "Hello my darling," I cooed at him, changing my hair color to a bright, sunny yellow in greeting. "Did you miss me?"

Teddy looked a lot like Remus, in his base form, which is what he kept most of the time. He was too young to really have the necessary control for changing more than his hair and eye color on a regular basis yet. The fact that he slapped at my face when I greeted him, however, proved that he was most definitely my sister's son. Especially when my disgruntled expression made him laugh so hard that he was gasping.

Neville laughed at me too. "I'd take that as a 'yes'," he advised.

I rolled my eyes at him, but used my free arm to hug him tightly to me anyways. "Thank you for this, Nev," I sighed into the fabric of his robes. "I really couldn't look after him today while I set up."

"It was no problem," the man assured me, dropping a kiss onto the top of my head. "If you ever need anything, I'm just one floo away to ask, all right?"

I nodded in acknowledgement and smiled up at my best friend brightly. Up until my fifth year, everyone around us was convinced that Neville and I were going to get married and live happily ever after together as the perfect couple, since we were so close. Those speculations screeched to a grinding halt when a pair of seventh-year prefects were out on patrol one evening and found Parvati Patil and I pressed intimately together in a broomcloset, the dark-haired girl screaming out my name.

I was kind of a raging lesbian.

Not that I wasn't girly, mind you, because I was. I drove Hermione up the wall sometimes with my endless talk of fashion (both wizarding and muggle) and proper cuticle care. I just happened to greatly appreciate the attributes of the fairer sex. Neville was pretty happy about it, too, when the truth came out. Apparently, I make an excellent wingman. We were like siblings, anyways, so even if I _was_ into guys, I would have never dated him. Sure, I was related to the Blacks, but that didn't mean that I wanted to continue their incestuous habits!

"I've set the guest room up, if you wanted to stay the night," I offered, bouncing my nephew and godson just enough that he started laughing again.

Neville shook his head and leaned back up against the mantle of the fireplace. "I need to be getting back to London," he admitted. "Harry asked me to give you and Teddy his best before I go, though. Said he'll stop by for a visit in two weeks, for your birthday, loaded with presents to spoil his godson and to annoy you."

I smiled a little. Harry was a wonderful godfather to Teddy. He'd even offered to take him in and raise him, after my mother's death. I told him that I'd do it though. Harry wasn't ready to be a parent yet. I told him to be the cool uncle instead. "Well, tell him that I can't be held responsible if I hex him on sight," I informed Neville with a wink. "He's a cheeky bugger, he is."

Neville shook his head and took a pinch of floo powder from the blue glass vase atop the mantle. "And you're a prat. I fear for your godson's soul," he said solemnly, before tossing the powder into the fireplace. "American International Floo Station," he said clearly, before vanishing in a rush of flames and a wink.

The house fell silent again, aside from Teddy's senseless babbling. I placed the baby onto the couch and eyed his flickering color schemes speculatively. If a muggle saw him, they'd have a heart attack. Muttering darkly about annoying metamorph babies, I drew my wand (Phoenix feather and beech, ten inches) from its holster in my sleeve and trained it on him. It was time for some serious glamour charms.

A good twenty minutes later, I deemed Teddy sufficiently muggle. I'd charmed his hair deep auburn, to match mine, and his eyes blue. Teddy wasn't exactly happy with me, but he'd have to get used to it. He'd have to go to a muggle daycare center during school hours now, and that would require him to be a bit more monochromatic than he was accustomed to.

"Come on, Teddy," I cooed at him as he screamed at me for strapping him into the muggle carseat. "It's only for a little bit. Auntie Sim is going to buy you dinner," I promised.

It was an ordeal, but I finally succeeded in trapping my young charge into the muggle torture device, jumped in the car, and headed towards greater Forks. I hadn't been grocery shopping yet, so the kitchen was depressingly bare at the moment, and I was hungry. Besides, I needed to keep Teddy awake for another few hours, to try and get him acclimated to the time difference, and he and I were alike in that food would distract us from absolutely anything. Up to and including being pissed at being awake.

The diner I walked into seemed fairly crowded, even for a Friday evening, which I took to be a positive review of the food. We took a seat, Teddy tucked neatly into a kiddie-chair I'd found against one wall, and were soon greeted by a rather heavily made-up waitress. "Hi, I'm Kelsey and I'll be your server for this evening. What can I get cha?" She popped her gum loudly, tucking a strand of strawberry blonde hair that had escaped from its messy bun back behind one ear. She then did a double-take. "You new in town?" she asked. "I ain't seen you around before."

I smiled sweetly at her, a little put off, but knowing that I needed to be nice. "Actually, yes," I told her. "We just moved in this morning. No food in the house yet, so we were pretty hungry."

She gaped at me a moment. "Your accent… where did you move from?"

"England," I replied.

Her eyes widened incrementally. The motion didn't improve my opinion of her intelligence. "Oh," she said. Her eyes flickered to Teddy. "He's cute. Is he yours?"

"My nephew. We'll take two waters, please," I said firmly.

"Oh! Right," she stammered, before ducking away.

I sighed and ducked down to give Teddy a kiss on his cheek. "If this is how everyone is going to react to us here in Forks, we've got our work cut out for us, sugar," I commented. He looked up at me with wide blue eyes.

By the time Monday arrived, I had reaffirmed the fact that I fucking hate Divination. I'd just had a little preview of muggle High School.


	2. Chapter 2: The Art of Alice

The Metamorph: Chapter Two  
The Art of Alice

* * *

Teddy and I spent the weekend getting acclimated to our new home, as well as the people around town. It was different for me, living alone with Teddy. I mean, I had in England for a time, but all of my friends were constantly Apparating in and out. I wasn't ever _really_ alone, but I was now. I found that I liked it. It was quiet. Peaceful. The first time my life had ever been so. I could take Teddy grocery shopping without the minor explosions and pity stares, for once.

Monday was a sort of mixed hell for me, though. I had never attended muggle school before, and though it would have been possible for me to fake being older than seventeen, I didn't want to. Maybe it was Hermione rubbing off on me –because Merlin knows I wasn't the most studious of witches—but the thought of going to muggle school honestly appealed to me. I wanted to see what there was to know in the muggle world.

So here I was, pulling into the parking lot of Forks High after dropping Teddy off at the daycare center: having hit him with so many glamour charms that I was frankly surprised that he wasn't sparkling. The lot was only half-filled with people, but they were all staring at my shiny blue Camry as if it was an alien from another planet. I didn't really blame them, either. My car had to be the nicest one in the entire parking lot, aside from a silver Volvo on the other side.

I parked, and rested my forehead on the steering wheel, taking calming breaths. I was twitchy. In my recent experience, stares were a bad thing. Stares meant that your family was dead, or that a Death Eater was about to set an example with you, with the _cruciatus _curse. I was being stared at, and I didn't like it.

"All right, Sim, you've got to stop this," I told myself, eyes still tightly closed. "They're just kids. They aren't going to kill you, so chin up and be brave. Be brave for Dora and Remus. Teddy needs you to be normal."

So I did it. I took a deep breath and exited the car, bookbag slung over one shoulder, and made my way through the drizzle to the squat building labeled 'office' on the glass double doors. Or rather, 'cffice'. Someone had taken great pains to scratch out the letter 'o' and had only partially succeeded. The light rain reminded me very strongly of England, though little else did.

Ten minutes later, I had left the building but was armed with a new class schedule and a map. Not that I needed it. I'd learned to navigate _Hogwarts_, for Merlin's sake. This was so easy it wasn't even funny.

Surprisingly, muggle High School wasn't all that different from Hogwarts. I saw the same type of people everywhere. I even met a second set of my old Gryffindor roommates. Jessica and Lauren were really just muggle versions of Parvati and Lavender. Pretty hot, but completely vapid, personality-wise. Mike and Eric reminded me of Seamus and Dean, always joking and horsing around. They were all really nice to me, and every single person I spoke to all day absolutely _adored_ my accent. Well, it wasn't an accent to _me_, as _I_ was the only one speaking normally in this situation, but I swear a couple of them almost creamed their pants when I started talking.

What was it with Americans and accents?

I decided that it was because they were complete Yank fools. Yahoos. Hooligans. They'd never learned to speak proper English, and most likely never would.

All in all, I was having a pretty good day until lunch rolled around.

That's when my magic went completely haywire.

I'd been feeling a bit off all day. That sort of itch in the back of your mind when you know you've forgotten something but can't say what it is. When I'd entered the cafeteria, however, I knew what it was that my magic had been trying to tell me.

There was something decidedly not muggle in the room. More than one something, from the feel of it. All witches and wizards had this sort of sixth sense, when it came to magic. We could feel the presence of wards and of especially powerful magic users. We could feel the ambiance of exceptionally powerful magical objects, as well as that of powerful magical creatures, and if they had been trained in Occlumency by their Auror sister and pureblood mother, as I had, we could feel when someone was invading our minds.

I stiffened two steps in from the door, slamming down my Occlumency shields against what felt like a very passive Legilimency probe that would have only picked up my surface thoughts, and scanned the room with one hand up my left sleeve, gripping my hidden wand tightly. My line of sight was immediately drawn to a table at the far back, where five inhumanly beautiful people sat together, picking at the food on their trays.

And when I say inhumanly beautiful, I _mean_ inhumanly beautiful. Trust me. I'd met Fleur Delacour. (I'd spent a week running around in her skin for the sole purpose of pissing her off, actually, but that's neither here nor there.) They all had complexions paler than even mine, perfectly symmetrical features, and gorgeous golden eyes. They also radiated a predatory sense that immediately set me on edge. They moved in a way that was just a little too choreographed: a little too purposeful. They weren't human, I was sure of it. Their magical aura was too strong to be anything less, but they obviously weren't witches or wizards.

"Are you like, okay?" Jessica shattered my moment of panic.

Immediately, I shook myself back into muggle mode, but I made sure to keep the table of clearly inhuman students in my peripheral vision. "Yeah Jessica. The noise just took me by surprise for a moment there," I replied hastily, following her to the lunch table. I made sure to sit in such a way that I could clearly see the other table, as well as all of the exits. Couldn't be too careful.

I didn't pay much attention to the conversation at the table, choosing to instead study the group of students just as intently as they were studying me. Sure, they hid it well, but at least one of them was looking at me the entire time, and not in the way all of the other students were. There were three males and two females, and they were curious. Something was different about me, and I knew that they could sense it. Frankly, I didn't know what to make of them. If it weren't for the eyes, I would say that they were vampires, but every third-year student knew that vampires had red eyes. Not to mention the fact that no vampire would choose to attend muggle school for a year and a half like these five had, according to Jessica when I'd asked about the group that she'd dubbed 'The Cullens'. (It very much sounded like the 'the' was capitalized.) So I was left at a loss. Still, I didn't want to approach them until I knew how to kill them. Just in case. Call me jaded, but I'd learned the hard way that this was the best way to approach things.

My next class was Chemistry. The office had wanted to stick me in Biology, but I from what Hermione had told me, Chemistry was similar enough to Potions that I'd do all right in the class, even though I was complete rubbish at Potions, so I'd asked them to switch. It was a lab day with quite a bit of down time; so naturally, I was accosted by curious teenagers asking about my life. I had to lie about quite a bit of it, of course, but none of these children meant any harm, so I did my best to be pleasant. The town was absolutely tiny, and they rarely were afforded the chance to meet new people, much less from a foreign country. It couldn't hurt to indulge them, I decided.

It was in the last class of the day –art, which I'd taken in place of P.E. thanks to a well-timed _confundus_ charm—that I'd finally been forced to confront one of the other magicals. It was a very full class, and at first I hadn't even noticed her. I was paying close attention to the teacher, who was explaining their current project to me, which I would be able to complete, seeing as they'd only started on Friday. She gave me a list of emotions, and told me to illustrate a scene depicting each particular emotion through whichever medium I preferred. It was a neat idea, and I was excited for it. It was only then that the middle-aged woman asked me to take a seat next to Miss Cullen.

So I did. Not without trepidation, mind you. I was tensed and battle ready as I approached the tiny creature bent over her work, fingering my wand beneath my sleeve, and I sat down slowly. Cautiously. I was very much prepared to run.

The girl glanced up as I did so and flashed me a brilliant smile. "Hello," she chirped, sticking out her hand for me to shake. "I'm Alice Cullen."

I blinked at her. What the hell? But, being the scion of an English pureblood witch, my manners kicked in at full force. "Bella Swan," I returned easily, taking her hand and shaking it firmly, trying not to gasp at the electric tingle that raced up my arm as I touched her. My magic was pulsing and purring. Whatever this Alice Cullen was, it _liked_ her and was reaching out to her, making it difficult for me to focus. I was still receiving the 'inhuman' vibe loud and clear, but I also felt safe with this girl, and it wasn't just because she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever laid eyes upon. I was a metamorphmagus. Beauty didn't mean the same thing to me as it did to others. No, I felt safe with Alice because my magic was embracing her like an old friend, which had _never_ happened to me before. Not with a stranger.

I did make a mental note to try out her cute little nose and gorgeous golden doe eyes for myself at some later point, though. She really was extraordinarily beautiful, and I didn't usually look so plain as I did now. My hair, at least, wasn't usually so docile as to fall down to the middle of my back in boring auburn waves. It was usually some crazy color, either excessively long or short, or styled into an imitation of someone else's. Now that I was thinking about it, I liked Alice's hair too. Spiked into perfect disarray. I'd try it out in an obnoxious neon blue. Teddy would love it.

Alice released my hand, although her smile didn't falter. The loss of contact made me realize just how cold her skin had been.

Cold, like a vampire.

I narrowed my eyes at her, but tried to stay pleasant. If this girl really _was_ a vampire, I didn't want to piss her off. Especially around all of these muggles. "So, what are you drawing?" I asked conversationally.

"Oh, the emotion for this one is courage," she explained cheerfully, rotating her pencil drawing so that I could see it. It was a drawing of a dark-haired man with a hatchet fighting a bear. It was honestly rather gruesome. "My brother always jokes that he could take on a bear, so I just granted his wish."

I winced. Yikes. I could see where the courage was though. It was drawn into the line of the man's (her brother, I supposed) body as he stood tall in front of the bear. It was in his eyes, that held no fear. Alice was a talented artist, if a little morbid, and I told her so.

She laughed and threw me a wink that made my stomach erupt in butterflies, much to my own consternation. I was pretty sure that I shouldn't be wanting to flirt with an as of yet unidentified magical creature. "I like you," she declared. "We're going to be great friends." She said this as if she already knew it was true, and for some reason, I didn't doubt her. I just nodded in response and started on my own project.

That didn't stop me from practically running out of the classroom the moment the bell sounded like a bat out of hell, though. I was in full panic mode by that point, screeching out of the parking lot as fast as humanly possible and heading to pick up Teddy. If he was in any sort of danger here in Forks, I wasn't going to stand for it.

Thankfully, I was able to get that point across to Hermione before she hexed me for flooing into her living room in the middle of the night. (For her, that is. It was still early afternoon in Forks.)

"Hermione, I need your help," I gasped, clutching a squirming Teddy closer to me as Hermione led me towards her home library. She had a good-sized flat in London now, and it was, predictably, filled with all manner of books. "I don't know what they are. You know how well I did in Care of Magical Creatures." 'Well' being a relative term. I was rubbish at Care of Magical Creatures too. Blighters always bit me, regardless of species. "They were like vampires, but _not_. They had _golden eyes_, Hermione!" I squeaked, changing my own eyes to match so I could show her. "And they attend high school. And their father figure apparently works at a _hospital_!"

Hermione glanced up from the bookshelf she was perusing and fixed me in her famous glare. "Bella, calm down," she instructed me firmly. "Go make some tea. You're scaring Teddy."

I wasn't about to argue with her. Hermione might not be as handy as I was in a fight, but I was still fairly certain that with that brain of hers, she could still kick my ass six ways to Sunday. She'd survived Harry all these years, hadn't she?

My brief sojourn to England ended up lasting for approximately five hours as Hermione tore through her library, occasionally pausing and sipping at the tea I'd prepared for her. She looked everywhere. Through several volumes of magical creatures and humanoid variations, and even through a book of obscure glamour charms. The witch's research skills were impressive, to say the least, especially since I had taken to anxiously glancing at her about every five seconds while I entertained Teddy in the far corner of the room, which had been magically expanded to fit all of Hermione's books. (How she managed to collect so many so quickly, I didn't even want to know.) It wasn't until the aforementioned five hour mark hit that she suddenly leaped from her armchair with a victorious whoop.

I was trying to peer over her shoulder at the pages of the book she was holding in an instant. "What is it? What did you find?" I asked.

Hermione shoved me away from her and gave me a look that clearly told me to pull myself together. Toning it down a couple notches, I retrieved Teddy, who incoherently babbled at me in retaliation for picking him up, and sat down on the floor in front of her chair like a child awaiting story-time.

"I found a description here of a golden-eyed vampire," Hermione finally explained, gesturing to the book in her hand. It looked rather old, but other than that, completely normal. It was titled 'Vampires of Southern Italy'. "It mostly contains details about the vampire royalty," Hermione continued. "However, there's a passage here about a vampire that once visited Volterra that didn't drink human blood."

My jaw dropped. "But that's impossible," I breathed. I'd met Sanguini. I'd fought vampires in the Final Battle. None of them had the control that would be required for something like that. Sanguini told me that he only ever socialized with wizards and never muggles, because wizards didn't smell as appealing to a vampire as a muggle did, and he'd been suffering a bit even then! So how could the five beings I saw deny themselves when in such close proximity to so many tasty muggle snacks? Besides, if this mysterious vampire from Hermione's book didn't drink human blood, what _did_ he drink?

I voiced these thoughts to Hermione, who nodded absently. "It says here that this vampire drank only animal blood, which changed the color of his eyes from the red typically seen in the species to a golden hue," she continued, frowning a little. "There's not much else written. The author never met this vampire, but only heard of him from the others, who spoke of him as a novelty. Apparently, they didn't approve of his eating habits. But from everything you've told me, this seems to fit."

I blinked and dropped my head into my hands, ignoring Teddy's squawk of indignation as I practically collapsed on top of him, seeing as he was still seated in my lap. "Only_ I _would stumble on a coven of six, possibly seven, freak vampires within a week of leaving magical London," I groaned before sitting up again.

"What are you going to do about it?" Hermione asked me curiously.

I frowned, remembering Alice. She'd been… she'd been so bloody _nice_ to me. I couldn't really see her as a threat. The others, on the other hand, I could. Especially since the only place that the Legilimency sweep could have originated from was from one of the other vampires. Who ever heard of a vampire learning Legilimency? I'd kept that tidbit to myself.

Still, I didn't really want to move out of Forks. I'd just settled in, and it would be a pain in my arse to do the same somewhere else. Besides, with my luck, I'd find a bloody _dragon_ in the next town. Might as well quit while I was ahead.

"I'll confront them," I decided aloud. "It'll be a bit late in Forks, but vampires can't sleep," I reasoned. "I'll find their house, head over, and introduce myself. If they really are animal drinkers, they should be fairly pacifistic, and we'll be able to coexist. If not, I'll get rid of the problem." I would, too. Vampires were nothing some good reflexes and an excellent fire spell couldn't solve. I knew that from experience. The Cullens could either tolerate my presence, leave town, or die. I thought I was being pretty fair. "Watch Teddy?" I asked Hermione, who was yawning. "Just for a little while, I promise. You can even floo Harry and make him do it while you go to bed."

Hermione watched me with concern, but nodded. "Be safe, Bella," she warned me. "I don't need to tell you how dangerous vampires are. Teddy doesn't need to lose another parent. You could always take someone with you, you know."

I nodded at her solemnly. "I know, but I think I can handle this on my own. I'll be careful though," I promised, standing and heading towards the floo. "I'll floo back in a few hours. Be good for Auntie 'Mione, Teddy!"

I was swallowed by the green flames.

One international floo trip later, I stumbled back into my living room, slightly woozy. The sun had just set, so the room was rather dark, but I didn't take long to recover before I Apparated to Forks General Hospital in search of the Cullen residence, which I didn't know the location of. However, I very clearly recalled what Jessica had told me about the Cullens, so I knew that Dr. Cullen worked at the hospital. With any luck, he hadn't left for home yet and I could still catch him.

So that was how I found myself waltzing through the front doors of the hospital as a perfect replica of Alice Cullen. Sans the missing heartbeat, of course. I even had the style of dress down pat, considering that we actually had very similar taste in clothing, judging from the time I'd spend observing her that morning. (What can I say? I enjoy looking beautiful, and it was clear that she did too.) One of the nurses behind the glass in the reception area saw me almost immediately and called out, "Miss Cullen!"

Doing my best to imitate how Alice seemed to dance as she moved, I made my way over towards her. The nurse, a somewhat portly woman in her fifties, smiled at me indulgently. "Are you here to see your father, Miss Cullen?"

I gave her a dazzling smile with what I now understood to be vampire-white teeth. "I was sent to make sure he's home in time for our family dinner," I reported in Alice's tinkling voice. It was a bit difficult to put on an American accent, even with borrowing Alice's voice box, but I did a passable imitation. I'd have to work on that.

The nurse laughed. "Just a moment, dear. I'll bring the good doctor right down," she assured me. "He really does work too much."

I wanted to laugh. An animal-drinking vampire, working overtime in a hospital. I really was having quite the day. I just nodded to the nurse and waited, bouncing on the balls of my feet. I didn't know if this was a habit of Alice's, but it seemed like something she would do. None of the other nurses had looked at me as if this were in any way unusual, so I figured I was right.

Ten minutes later, Dr. Cullen himself arrived in the lobby, still decked out in his white lab coat. He appeared physically older than the others, and was just as handsome as his 'sons'. He too was clearly a vampire, aside from the unusual color of his eyes.

I waved cheerfully at him, and his jaw dropped for a moment before he regained his composure. I suppose it's not every day that you see your vampire 'daughter' suddenly appear with human skin and a heartbeat. "Don't worry, Dr. Cullen," I said lowly. He was still across the room, but I knew he could hear me, even if none of the muggles could. "I mean you no harm, but perhaps we could take this conversation outside." Understanding flickered across his face for a moment before he called out his goodbyes to the nurses and we exited the building side-by-side, as a father and daughter would.

Outside, however, he wasn't so friendly. We stepped beside a rather large parked van, so that the muggles couldn't see us, before standing farther apart. He eyed me warily. "Who are you, witch? And what do you want?" he asked in a very calm, but clearly threatening, voice.

I was pleased that he knew enough to recognize a witch when he saw one. "Hello, Dr. Cullen," I greeted him, still with Alice's voice. I wasn't about to shift back into Bella Swan so close to so many muggles. "My name is Bella Tonks. I recently moved into the area, and was quite surprised to see such a large coven of such _very_ unusual vampires out and about," I explained, throwing him a cheeky wink. "I need to meet with your coven, but I didn't know where you were located, exactly. I would rather come and get you than fly over the whole city with a detection charm, so here I am!"

The man paused to consider me. "Bella Tonks?" he finally asked. "You wouldn't be Bella Swan, would you?"

"Right in one," I confirmed. "I about had a heart attack when I walked into the cafeteria and saw five vampires sitting at one of the tables. I'll give you that the eyes threw me for a serious loop, though. I had to spend five hours in a library with my rather bookish friend in order to determine what exactly that meant. I assume that I am correct in thinking that your coven and yourself survive off of animal blood?"

He nodded. "You would be correct. I admit you've surprised me though. I haven't seen a witch or wizard in over a hundred years. Why is it that you need to meet with my coven?"

I raised one eyebrow. Blunt. I liked it. "I was under the impression that your coven has established a permanent residence here. For the time being, at least. I would like to do the same, and assumed that the polite thing to do would be to meet. It would certainly go a long way in preventing hostilities."

"Very well," the vampire finally agreed, after studying me for a moment with an inscrutable expression. He gestured towards a black Mercedes. "You are free to ride with me, or follow through your own methods," he said crisply before turning on heel and striding towards his car. It wasn't hard to tell that he was extremely on edge about me, but then again, my heart was pounding away in my chest as well and my hand was clued to the warm wood of my wand tucked into my sleeve. It was a mutual skittishness.

I still followed him though, sliding into the passenger seat of his admittedly _very_ nice car in the flowing, dancing manner that I'd copied from Alice. "Thanks for the lift, Dr. C!" I chirped, unable to help myself.

The man was amused. I could tell. His lips twitched in that way that just screams 'I-can't-give-you-the-satisfaction-of-laughing-even-though-you're-a-riot' and his strange golden eyes flickered over to me as he pulled smoothly out of the parking lot. "You've clearly met Alice," he commented dryly.

I laughed lightly. "She was pretty hard to forget."


	3. Chapter 3: Bewitched

The Metamorph: Chapter Three  
Bewitched

* * *

I will never forget the expression on Edward Cullen's face when I stepped out of the passenger seat of Dr. Cullen's car. (I only knew his name because Jessica had pointed him out to me specifically.) The other vampires in the coven had clearly heard us coming and realized that something wasn't right, because they had all gathered on their front lawn by the time we pulled up. Their eyes had widened as I –still doubled as Alice—appeared, but Edward's jaw had gone slack in addition, and I couldn't help but laugh rather loudly at the sight.

"Carlisle, what the _fuck_ is this?" the blonde girl snarled, baring her teeth at me aggressively.

This sobered me greatly, and I drew my wand. "Watch it with the teeth, blondie," I threatened. "I'd hate to have to hex them off."

The largest vampire, who had dark curly hair, growled at me, and I assumed that he must be the blonde's mate.

"Rosalie, please," Dr. Cullen scolded lightly. "No need to be rude."

"Bella, is that you?" Alice breathed. My head snapped her way. She had straightened from the aggressive pose the others had dropped into and was staring at me with large eyes and a hopeful expression. Merlin, she was adorable.

I shot her the same flirtatious wink that she'd given me in art class. Literally, the same one. We were pretty much identical, at the moment. Well, as identical as a human _could_ be, to a vampire. "Of course! How many other witches do you know?" I teased her.

"None," she breathed, still staring at me with that wide-eyed look of awe and fear and hope. "I've never met one. Why… why do you look like that?"

"Now-now Alice. Surely you know. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." I tossed my short, spiky black hair like a model. "But if it makes you more comfortable, I can go back to how I was. I'm told it's fairly disconcerting to see yourself from the third person." With that, I morphed back into Bella Swan. I was about two inches taller than Alice in this form, and significantly less bustier, but that wasn't a problem. I'd charmed all of my clothes to be resizing. A pain in the arse, but worth it in the end.

"That was seriously cool," the large vampire who'd growled at me earlier suddenly announced. It seemed he'd gotten over me threatening his mate rather quickly. His huge grin –complete with dimples—reminded me of a large child. My magic wasn't reaching out and trying to encompass him like it was Alice even at this very moment, but I still instantly liked him. He had that bright nature about him that Nymphadora always had, like he laughed a lot.

So I grinned at him and twirled my wand devilishly in my fingers. "Want me to do another?"

"Hell yes!" he all but shouted.

In the blink of an eye, I was the clone of Rosalie, who I proceeded to blow a kiss to. She hissed at me, but I took it in stride. Truly, the vampire was very beautiful. I'd bet two Galleons that she'd had Veela blood before she was turned. I'd always been more of a fan of brunettes though. With that in mind, I shifted again, into the female version of Neville that I'd worn so often during my school years, and took a dramatic, sweeping bow. I was feeling inexplicably comfortable and relaxed.

I knew better. I would never be this calm around strangers. Not after I'd learned not to be under pain of _cruciatus_.

I stiffened and cast off the mood, sweeping narrowed eyes over the assembled vampires. We'd learned about vampire gifts in class, but they were supposed to be incredibly rare. Still, I would have _never_ been that at ease without an outside influence. Ever. Now that I knew what to look for, when I extended my magical senses it was easier to pinpoint the source of the manipulation.

I leveled my wand at a quiet, blonde male vampire. Jasper. Jessica had pointed him out too, as both he and Edward were single. "Stop it," I hissed at him. "Whatever you're doing, stop it." I allowed a few red sparks to spurt from my wand tip, causing the boy's golden eyes to widen. He took a step back.

"He didn't mean any harm, Bella," Alice said quietly from the side.

I glanced at her, but slowly lowered my wand. I trusted her because my magic did. It was… pulling me towards her, almost. I wasn't sure why, but magic was never wrong. So if Alice said that Jasper was fine, Jasper was fine. I cleared my throat awkwardly. The vampires were all staring at me like I'd grown a second head. (Impossible, by the way. I'd tried.) Frankly, I was just as surprised as they were, but whatever. "Any _other_ gifts I should know about?" I questioned. "Perhaps the Legilimency that keeps attacking my shields?" I tapped my wand pointedly against my temple.

All of their eyes slid over to Edward, who curled his lip at me. "I can't read her," he admitted. A slight breeze ruffled his bronze sex hair, and I immediately grew a ridiculous bronze afro, just to tease him.

"Your hair is ridiculous," I informed him. "And you need to learn to keep your mind to yourself. Legilimency is considered rude, you know. You're lucky I'm in a good mood." I mean, who ever heard of a _vampire_ learning Legilimency? It was entirely ludicrous.

"Oh, the little witch can do some fancy little tricks," Rosalie broke in with a sneer. "Let's go ahead and give her a hug before she _torches_ us. Carlisle, what are you _doing_?"

"I'm making peace with our new neighbor," he answered solemnly. "You may have never seen a witch before, Rosalie, but I have. Trust me when I say that it's better to have one as a friend than as an enemy. We're lucky that she didn't –as you say—_torch us_ on sight. As I understand it, we are considered Dark Creatures in her world."

"You understand correctly," I said quietly. "I've killed my fair share of vampires before, but your eyes made me curious, and I've no interest in entering another war after living through the last one." I sighed and ran my free hand through my hair, which had reverted to soft brown curls like Hermione's. "Look, I don't like killing, okay? I've seen and done enough of it already." My voice held a little bitterness at the end. "I came here from England to escape the aftermath of the War. To be someplace peaceful for the first time in my life." To my genuine surprise, my tone was almost pleading. "I don't want to kill you. I've seen how other vampires act, and I think how you live is commendable and remarkable, but I can't keep my family here if you're a danger to us. You understand? If we can't reach an agreement to coexist, I'll be forced to protect my family, just like you would yours, and you _won't_ like how I do it."

Edward snorted. "What, and miss the opportunity to slaughter some of the Dark Creatures you hate? I don't think so."

I just smiled and shook my head as both Alice and –surpisingly—Jasper, hissed at him in my defense. "I'm hardly prejudiced," I replied amusedly. "I've killed werewolves too, and yet my sister _married_ one. It would be hypocritical of me to kill you for the fun of it, if you've done nothing to wrong me."

Edward opened his mouth to speak again, but was hushed by the one female that I hadn't yet seen before this meeting. She, again, appeared physically older than the other two, but was just as pretty with her generous curves and caramel brown hair. "I apologize for him, Miss Swan. He gets overly excited sometimes," she hummed. Her voice was warm. "You said 'family'. Should we expect to be welcoming more of your kind?"

I shook my head. "Not as permanent guests. Visitors, occasionally. The only ones living here are Teddy and myself."

"Teddy? Who's Teddy?" Alice's voice was suddenly very sharp, which surprised me. My magic gave another strong tug in her direction, and I felt an inexplicable urge to comfort her that could not be attributed to Jasper's mysterious interference.

I shook my head to clear it. "Not a threat to the likes of you, I assure you," I reported with amusement. After all, my little Teddy was barely eight months old. He couldn't hurt a vampire if he tried. "So let's make an agreement, shall we?" I stated with confidence that I did not feel. "I promise not to try and kill you if you promise to not try and kill either Teddy or I. Who knows? Alice says that we might even be friends." I winked at the smallest vampire, who now appeared quite flustered.

Dr. Cullen stepped forwards and offered up his hand. "I think I can agree to that," he said with a glance at Alice, who threw him a curt nod.

I ignored his hand and drew my wand, which the vampires eyed nervously. I really couldn't blame them for that reaction. A wand was a weapon. Nothing less. I could burn them at any time with it, should I choose to. I held my beech wand out in front of my very formally. "_I, Bella Tonks, swear on my life and magic that I will not attack any member of the Cullen coven unprovoked. So mote it be."_ A golden flare lit up around my body as my magic accepted the oath. I then lightly laid the tip of my wand where Dr. Cullen's heart would be beating, had it the capability to do so. "Your turn," I announced. He had flinched at the motion, but hadn't moved. Probably because I'd just sworn not to harm him. "If you'll please repeat after me. 'I –say your name—swear on my life, as coven leader, that no member of my coven shall attack Bella Tonks or Teddy Lupin unprovoked. So mote it be.'"

Dr. Cullen did as I asked, accompanied by a rush of my own magic sealing the deal in lieu of his own, and I returned my wand to its holster in my sleeve, feeling much better. Now neither of us could attack the other without good reason. I relaxed from fighting readiness immediately. "Excellent!" I exclaimed, clapping my hands together and flicking both my hair and eyes to an electric blue in my excitement. "I'll see you five at school tomorrow," I said, nodding to the 'teenagers'. "I'd expect that you have some things you'd like to discuss with me, Cullens, but I really need to get back to England to pick up Teddy right now. However, I'd be happy to return after school tomorrow. You could even meet Teddy, then."

"That sounds wonderful," Dr. Cullen said graciously. "Do you need someone to drive you back to your home?"

"That would be far too slow. Thank you though," I giggled. "Have a nice evening!"

I shot of a jaunty wave and Disapparated with a loud 'pop'.

The next day was an interesting one, to say the least. Muggle school was almost painfully uneventful, though I did get a large kick out of the fact that Jessica (rather loudly) pointed out at lunch that the Cullens were staring at me. Of course they were, I informed her. I was fabulous. Even better was that I knew that they could hear me tell her so.

I would be lying if I said that I wasn't tremendously excited for art class, though. I wanted to talk to Alice. I didn't even _know_ her yet, but she fascinated me. I was almost more fascinated by this fascination itself than I was by her. Almost.

I flopped down in my seat without preamble, causing Alice to look up at me, startled. I cast a discreet _muffliato_ spell over our table at the back of the class so that we'd have a little privacy from muggle ears before speaking. "Let's start over," I suggested, giving the vampire my most charming smile. "Hello, I'm Bella Tonks, witch extraordinaire." I offered her my hand. The overly cheerful, blustering attitude was a Tonks family trait, which I was now using to conceal the fact that I was nervous about Alice's reaction to me.

For a moment, I was afraid that she wasn't going to respond, but she eventually decided to do so, it seemed. She took my hand in her cold one and shook it, that same unusual tingle running up my arm with the contact as my magic surged forth to envelop her in its equivalent of a hug. I didn't stop it this time, and nearly hummed in the contentment that washed through me as I became doubly aware of her. "Hello Bella. I'm Alice Cullen, precognitive vampire."

I blinked. "You're a Seer?"

She released my hand and gave me her trademarked wink. "Yes ma'am."

She wasn't joking, I was certain. I was also floored. Only three to five people in an entire generation of magicals had the gift of foresight. The chances of a muggle developing a similar gift and then undergoing the change into a vampire was… in a word, astronomical. "Incredible…" I breathed, before cocking my head to one side. "Why didn't you see me coming?"

If Alice was capable of blushing, I would have sworn that she'd be doing so in that moment. "I did… sort of," she admitted, staring down at the blank paper and set of colored pencils in front of her. "I think that your magic messes with my visions. You're just a huge blur to me. I knew the name Bella Swan, and knew that we'd be… close. I didn't know anything about you, though. Or… or Teddy."

Hm. Strange. "Well, we'll just have to fix that, won't we?" I said with another smile. "You have one question. One question to which I will give you and only you a full an honest answer."

Alice's eyes widened, and her sculpted lips parted slightly. "Why?" she asked.

"Is that really your question?" I teased cheekily, arching an eyebrow. I didn't want Alice angry with me though, so I quickly decided to answer her. "Because I have a weakness for pretty girls. Ask away, oh fair one!"

Apparently unable to decide if she wanted to hug me or hit me, Alice chose to obey and ask her question. "Why did you move here from England?" she asked.

I froze. Merlin's saggy left testicle, that was a good question! Damned vampire.

"I believed I mentioned a war last night?" I began. Alice nodded swiftly. I looked down at the table and labeled my paper 'Fear' and began to draw. "Well, this was a magical war, and it was very different than anything you've probably seen," I said, keeping my focus on the drawing so that I wouldn't have to meet her eyes and let her see the pain in my face, though I was fairly certain that she could hear it in my voice anyways. "I killed my first enemy combatant when I was fifteen." Department of Mysteries, fifth year, when I and some of Harry's other friends accompanied him on a mission to rescue his godfather. I never knew the Death Eater's name that I'd hit with the cutting curse, as they'd had their mask on. I don't think I wanted to know. "I spent the last two years of my life in a war zone. In a _school_. Defying enemies who found it fun to torture children in their free time, or for 'detention'. We won, but… the price was high." I focused harder on my drawing. "My father. My sister. My brother-in-law. My mother. Many of my friends. The children. This wasn't a war between countries, Alice. This was _civil_ war. I killed my own aunt, because she killed my sister. Magical England was… is… a disaster area. With the victory, it's getting better, but I couldn't stay there anymore. It was over, and I'd done my part. So I left."

The drawing was finished. I'd drawn my sister's body as I'd found it, huddled so much smaller than she'd seemed when alive, and so still. There wasn't a mark on her, but the emptiness in her eyes said it all. Fear. This was fear. Losing the people you loved.

I was surprised when Alice took my hands in hers, but I didn't object. "I'm sorry," she whispered to me. "I shouldn't have asked."

I shrugged slightly, but chose to continue staring at our entwined hands instead of meeting Alice's eyes. It felt nice, to hold her hands. I felt safe. "You said we'd be friends, Seer," I pointed out. "You needed to know."

We worked through the remainder of the class period in silence. It was a good silence, though. A healing silence.

"I'll see you soon. Teddy and I will be on your front lawn in twenty minutes, okay?" I told Alice.

The vampire nodded curtly, appearing pensive.

I didn't like the change in mood. "Smile for me?" I asked her, pausing with my book bag slung halfway onto my shoulder.

Alice looked up at me in surprise (She hadn't left her chair yet.) for a moment before her lips adopted a tentative curl.

I flashed a grin at her. "It's a start," I ceded. "You should smile more. You're too beautiful for a frown." With that, I swept from the room, on a mission to collect Teddy from the daycare.

Twenty minutes later on the dot, I parked my car in front of the Cullens' beautiful white mansion-house, which I really hadn't taken the time to appreciate during my previous visit. It was a work of art: all glass and smooth walls. I'd seen nothing like it in the magical world, but I found that I greatly preferred it to dingy old haunts like the Leaky Cauldron or Number 12 Grimmauld Place, where I'd once stayed for a summer with my sister. "Come on, Teddy darling," I cooed at my godson as I extracted him from the back seat and balanced him on my hip. He too was looking up at the Cullen residence with awe. He'd even ceased his babbling and had changed his hair white to match it. "Let's go meet the Cullens."

I walked right up to the front door, but before I could knock, Alice flung it open. "Hi Bella!" she greeted me in a chipper sort of way, bouncing on the balls of her feet. (I _knew_ that Alice would do that!) "Come in."

I obeyed with a bright smile and allowed the vampire to lead me straight into the family room where the others were waiting, perched on various chairs and couches. They'd left spaces next to both Edward and Alice, and I chose to be near Alice. (Duh.) I dropped onto the empty couch cushion, arranging Teddy so that he could sit in my lap and look out over the assembled vampires.

"Who is _this_ young man?" the brunette woman with the warm voice asked as soon as I sat down. One look at Teddy and she'd melted into a puddle of maternal goo. I found that rather funny.

I bounced Teddy on my knee enough to get him to giggle. His hair was still white, to match the house, though his eyes were dark brown. "Cullens, this is Teddy Lupin," I announced.

The large, dark-haired vampire immediately burst into booming laughter. This wasn't really the reaction I was expecting, and I glanced at him curiously. The other vampires were glaring at him, but he didn't seem to care. "Sorry Bella," he apologized once he'd pulled himself together a little. "It's just that ever since you said you lived with a Teddy Lupin, Alice has been moping and bitching about you having a boyfriend. I never knew you were such a cougar!" He burst into peals of laughter again, but was quickly silenced by Rosalie, who smacked him upside the head with a 'Shut up, Emmett'.

I wasn't quite sure how to take that bit of information. Alice, angry that I had a 'boyfriend'? Could she be interested in me? Not that I'd say 'no' mind you, because Alice was definitely heart-achingly attractive and sweet, but frankly, I was under the impression that vampires generally stuck to their own kind, as far as finding a significant other went, so the thought was surprising. I didn't dare look to my left to see Alice's face after that comment, but that didn't mean that I couldn't be a smartarse to the large vampire. The one called Emmett, apparently.

"Now Emmett, just because you're dating your 'sister' doesn't mean that _everyone_ participates in incest," I scolded him in my best pureblood voice. Emmett cracked up again, while I put my face down next to Teddy's. "What do you think, my darling?" I cooed at him. "Want to made great-grandmummy proud and continue the Black family tradition?"

Teddy, who had absolutely no idea what was being said to him but enjoying the attention regardless, slapped at my face while shouting "Sim!"

I planted a kiss on the top of his head, before smirking at Emmett. "I am, as you say, 'out of his league'."

"Why did he call you Sim?" Edward blurted curiously. He was seated on the other couch in the room, perpendicular to the one that Alice and I occupied, and was leaning forwards eagerly as he spoke. I got the feeling that the Legilimens was unused to speaking with an Occlumens, and was therefore insatiably curious about me.

I grimaced at his question. "Because 'Sim' is all he can pronounce of my first name," I admitted. "Isabella's my middle name."

"So what's your first name?"

I looked over at him smugly. "Wouldn't _you_ like to know? If you don't know it, you won't call me by it, and then I won't have to hex you. I'm doing you a favor, really."

"But _he_ can call you 'Sim'!" Emmett protested, pointing an accusing finger at Teddy, who shifted his eyes golden like the vampires'.

I snorted. "He's blood. That's different."

"Is that why he can change his appearance like you can?" Dr. Cullen asked, clearly fascinated.

"There is a genetic component, yes," I admitted. "We're what's known as metamorphmagi. We can change our appearance at will. Teddy here's a grade two, whereas I'm a grade one. Basically, the changes that I make to my physiology are a bit more… permanent than Teddy's."

"Is he yours?" Rosalie asked softly. I was genuinely startled by the kindness in her eyes. She'd been nothing but hostile to me, ever, but from the way she was looking at Teddy, I could see what –or rather, who—had thawed the Ice Queen's heart. The boy wasn't even a year old and he was already charming the ladies. Remus would be proud.

"No, he's not," I replied. "He's my sister's."

"Where's your sister?" Edward asked. Beside me, I could see Alice visibly flinch, no doubt remembering what I'd told her in art class. (I still haven't the faintest clue what possessed me to say such things to a near stranger, but it seemed that I couldn't help myself with Alice. I just… trusted her.)

"Dead," I responded bluntly to Edward's question. "Along with her husband and my mother and father, as well as my aunt, her husband, her husband's brother, and my mother's cousin. My only surviving family members are either being prosecuted for war crimes or shunned by society for their rather morally questionable roles in the fighting. I wasn't joking about war in England, you know."

Everyone but Alice goggled at me. "Clearly," Dr. Cullen coughed, a little awkwardly.

I just forced a bright smile onto my face. "So how about some formal introductions?" I proposed. "I do have a few questions afterwards, of course. The only vampire that I've taken time to talk to was Sanguini and he was… distracted."

"How terribly rude of us!" the brunette female exclaimed. "I am Esme Cullen. You've already met my husband Carlisle." As Esme began to introduce her family, she gestured to each person. "These are my children. Emmett McCarty and Rosalie Hale-McCarty, Edward Mason, Jasper Whitlock, and Alice Cullen."

I nodded, glad to have the names to put with the faces. "So tell me a bit about your animal diet. How does it compare to the consumption of human blood?"

It was Jasper who answered, which surprised me, as he struck me as someone who didn't say much. He seemed like a genuinely nice guy though, so I was glad he was talking to me. "It's enough to live on, but it never completely satisfies," he explained. "Human blood is much more appetizing, so control is always an issue for us –myself especially—but I've gotten used to it, as have we all. Who was the war in England between?"

Ah, so we were playing twenty questions. I could work with that. "It was a magical civil war between the Light-sided witches and wizards, including almost all of the muggleborn and half-bloods, against You-Know-Wh…" I sighed and repressed a shudder. "Against _Voldemort_, and his followers. A good two-thirds of the purebloods."

Jasper looked bewildered.

"Ah, Bella?" Alice interrupted, laying an icy hand on my arm. "We don't… actually know what that means."

I wanted to slam my head into a wall, but repressed the urge, resigning myself to a long explanation. "All right," I sighed. "I guess you could say that this all started a little over seventeen years ago on Halloween…"


End file.
